Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently set for US TV series

The adventures of the holistic detective are to be adapted by Max Landis, writer of cult favourite Chronicle

The world’s foremost and only Holistic Detective is set to move to America. Dirk Gently, the character created by Douglas Adams in his comedy-sci-fi-mystical-mystery novels Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, has been optioned for a potential US television series and comic book.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, IDW and Ideate Media have optioned the worldwide rights. Max Landis, writer of non-heroic superhero movie Chronicle, is attached to write and executive-produce the pilot. The aim is to launch a TV series and tie-in comic book based on the soft-boiled detective.

Landis, son of director John Landis, is a fan of the novels: "Alongside the obvious yada yada, I'm a lifelong fan, Long Dark Teatime of The Soul is one of the best books ever. Douglas Adams is a visionary who forever changed the way science fiction is written and talked about, and even thought about, and even the way real actual science is thought about and without whom our culture would be noticeably different for the worse. I'd also just like to say holy crap, it's Dirk Gently."

Gently first appeared in 1987, and while less well known than Douglas Adams’s other series The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, he has his own dedicated following. A BBC series based on the books, starring Stephen Mangan and Darren Boyd, ran for four episodes on BBC4 between late 2010 and early 2012.